Sin is not primarily horizontal; it is vertical.
A crime against a neighbor is finite. A crime against the infinite God is not.
and then, presumably to support these unsupported guesses, Stan said:
This is why Scripture describes sin as lawlessness (1 John 3:4), rebellion (Isaiah 1:2), enmity against God (Romans 8:7), and falling short of His glory (Romans 3:23). Sin is not merely doing wrong; it is rejecting the God who is right.
Looking at his proof texts, then, 1 John 3...
Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.
But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins.
And in him is no sin.
No one who lives in him keeps on sinning.
No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
Okay, some points, right off the bat. John is clearly speaking metaphorically or figuratively, here. Even the conservative religionists are glad to acknowledge that even THEY "continue to sin" after coming to "know" Jesus.
Setting that aside, is there ANY support in this passage for Stan's theory that " a crime against the infinite God is not finite..."?
No. It's just literally not saying anything about that. At all.
Isaiah 1...
Hear me, you heavens! Listen, earth!
For the Lord has spoken:
“I reared children and brought them up,
but they have rebelled against me.
The ox knows its master,
the donkey its owner’s manger,
but Israel does not know,
my people do not understand.”
It's a passage where Isaiah is speaking specifically about a rebellious Israel, saying ISRAEL (in this specific time and place) does not understand.
Setting that aside, is there ANY support in this passage for Stan's theory that " a crime against the infinite God is not finite..."?
No. It's just literally not saying anything about that. At all. As we see in reviewing Isaiah (whether listening to rabbis or just regular people reading the book), the "guilty" groups in Isaiah, the ones who are threatened with just punishment, are those who specifically ARE rebelling (ie, not everyone) and even more specifically, the rich and powerful who would abuse the poor and marginalized.
No, it's literally NOT offering any support for Stan's theory.
Romans 8...
Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
This passage is not talking about a condition of all humanity, only those who live "according to the flesh." Which goes undefined and is obviously figurative/metaphorical language.
Setting that aside, is there ANY support in this passage for Stan's theory that " a crime against the infinite God is not finite..."?
No. It's just literally not saying anything about that. At all.
Moving on to Romans 3. This chapter, I'll note, contains the infamous, "There is no one good, no not one..." line, which, itself, is a quote from the OT, from Psalm 14 which says, in part, that there ARE no good, there are "none who seek God." Pretty inclusive (although not support for Stan's theory). BUT, if you keep reading, you will see what you always see in the OT warnings against the evil - it's ultimately a warning to rich oppressors to quit harming the poor and marginalized. "They (the evil ones) devour my people," God says. "You evil ones frustrate the plans of the poor, but I am their refuge..." As we see in context, the psalmist is not saying here that there are NO good people, rather, it's indictment upon the rich oppressors.
And not what Stan is saying.
But moving on and getting to the verse in question...
now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify...
ie, don't oppress the poor and marginalized, over and over that is made "known," made clear IF one is reading the OT in context and not ripping passages out of context. Continuing...
This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Which speaks to God's grace and acceptance of all those willing to be part of the beloved community of God, BUT, it doesn't address Stan's theory. At all.
So, yes, Stan IS throwing out all sorts of verses out there AND he's making many claims. But do ANY of the verses support ANY of his claims?
Objectively, no.
Oh, one more claim from Stan that I skipped past:
Sin is not merely doing wrong, it is rejecting the God who is right.
Do ANY of those passages say that?
Literally, no. Not in those words or any other words that suggest that.
More later.
I am curious (if you fellas are going to answer anything here), do you suspect that we WILL find any biblical support for Stan's theories that he keeps throwing out with no support? Do you suspect that at some point near the end, he'll finally be able to say, "And HERE is the verse that ties all those other verses and my many unsupported claims together..."?
I have to say, given past experience, the answer is almost certainly, No.
9 comments:
It is the horizontal sin which the vertical judge judges. Christ sacrificed himself because the triune God loves the world and hates the evils of brutalities against the world. Jesus identifies WITH the oppressed. Jesus REPRESENTS the abused. Jesus does not erase horizontal brutality. We cannot injure God! We do violate God’s justice when we injure human persons, human communities, and God’s creation. It is violating justice, an attribute of the divine which serves love, that offends.
Matthew 25
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left….
Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels…
Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’”
___
What is the telos, the goal, of all the gifts of grace - beyond faith! - which Christ gives us?
2 Peter 1
“His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason, you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness, and goodness with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with endurance, and endurance with godliness, and godliness with mutual affection, and mutual affection with LOVE.” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"It is the horizontal sin which the vertical judge judges."
Indeed.
"Christ sacrificed himself because the triune God loves the world and hates the evils of brutalities against the world. Jesus identifies WITH the oppressed."
And I think that's the main thing they're not getting. This is perhaps THE most singularly consistent strain running throughout the biblical texts (other than notions of God's love and the Beloved Community/realm of God, and they seem to just not see it.
It’s unmissable. They do see it. They will themselves to bury it. And it is that contradiction that is eating them up.
You and I came from communities that willed themselves not to see. I willed myself not to see it because I was taught not to see it. But I could not emerge into adulthood still blinding myself. I was moved by God’s grace to be more trusting of God’s love. And from that, God’s true righteous justice.
On the topic of Good, Craig recently complained about the word, itself, saying...
"The same English word (good) is used to refer to YHWH's perfection, as well as helping an old lady across the street. This ambiguity allows people to elevate the latter, much closer to the former than it probably deserves."
As if helping a little old lady across the street is not the epitome of good or godly. This need to downplay decent, kind, gracious behavior when it's done by humans is, well, not good.
Well, you seem to have gotten under his skin. He's struggling to feel like he's right. All of a sudden helping an elderly woman across the street can include robbing and/or killing her. Which is just an anxious way to argue for someone losing the thread. Helping a woman across the street assumes the intention of helping a woman across the street. If the intention is to rob her, then that's prima facie NOT helping a woman across the street.
When Thugs lose the thread of ethical conversation - as they always will do, being thugs - they begin to loosen the firm ground of reasonable dialogue. Which is Trump par excellence. Craig is suggesting that your use of the word and trope of "help a woman across the street" can mean anything. Which is obviously his twisting the act of your meaning actual help into his smokescreen of NOT helping. All in order to divert from your point which he cannot face.
And so he must add to his diversion with myth. God isn't being good by helping a woman across the street because the GOOD of divinity can be so much more.
And yet. Jesus ate with the neglected and outcast and called it good. Jesus accepting dinner invitations and sat far away from the head of the table and called it good. Jesus let a woman wash and anoint his feet and called it good. Jesus washed his disciples feet and called it good. Jesus said to this disciples that the poor widow putting in her two pennies to the offering was really good.
You and I can do the same things. In fact, I have done the same things and feel certain that you have, too. But Craig needs to deny that it is good like God. And so Craig denies Jesus' own acts of goodness. Jesus who is God.
As I said, Craig, like all Thugs, needs a God contained in stone tablets of law for lowly creatures. And washing feet isn't carved in.
“Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ….
So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.”
Via a vis your points to Craig, Aquinas says that all creatures good and can be quite good according to their capacity as created. And so we can be the most good of all creatures. But. O creature is perfectly good since it is not in our nature to be perfect. God, of course is good, and is good according to God’s nature. Which obviously is perfectly, supremely good.
Last thing, because I no longer want to think about the Thugs so much:
They are ashamed of Jesus the Christ. They are ashamed of his behavior in the Gospels and ashamed of the gracious goods delivered to all of God’s creation, but especially ashamed of those gracious gifts given to us who live by faith… so profound are they that Paul and Peter promise us that we can co-participate with God in the designs of divine nature.
This being ashamed of christian life is why they want the Ten Commandments in classrooms instead of the words of The Word in Matthew 25.
The Ten Commandments urge people to live according to the role given us by the institutions of social governance. In this way, the White hegemony - by controlling the institutions of power - can make the laws they want to keep everyone else as 3rd class and White women as 2nd class citizens.
Mattthew 25, however, the judgment of Christ, reveals that Christian faith always behaves in mercy, care, love, and restoration in opposition to the brutalities of supremacist power.
Thugs want the death that follows law. Because they nihilists, enraged for loss of power.
Those that follow Christ love the world because God so loved the world, and work always for reconciliation, peace, and communal love.
Feodor:
If the intention is to rob her, then that's prima facie NOT helping a woman across the street.
That WAS a strange point to "make," because it was making no point. These are all very "trump-like" conversations, it seems to me. Lacking in both grace and a consistent logic and a deep aversion to answering reasonable questions provoked by their irrational claims.
As to the rest of your comments, all I can say is Amen, Amen, Amen and Amen.
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